Excerpt from: North America Supply Chain and Logistics Strategy
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| January 21, 2008 | | Boeing’s supply chain for the 787 jetliner has created many challenges for the on-time completion of the plane. | Boeing officially delays the inaugural flight of the Boeing 787 jetliner by three months due to supply chain challenges. This will also delay the first delivery into 2009. This is not the first time which Boeing has delayed this dreamliner. Last October Boeing announced a 6 month delay. The new plan is for test flights to begin in June. Boeing has outsourced a lot of the production to manufacturers around the world. The assembly plant in Seattle had to perform work which outsourced manufacturers were supposed to perform. They have also experienced shortages of small parts and fasteners which are used to hold the plane together. Pat Shanahan, general manager of the 787 program, stated “We underestimated how long it would take to complete someone else's work. We designed our factory to be a lean operation. And the tools and the processes, the flow of material, the skill of the personnel are all tailored to perform last-stage high-level integration, checkout and test." With the manufacturing not being completed this has added work to the Seattle plant. | | |
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